Jul 28, 2018; Englewood, CO, USA; Denver Broncos quarterback Paxton Lynch (12) during morning practice on the first day of training camp at UCHealth Training Center. Mandatory Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

Quarterback is historically not a position of concern for the Denver Broncos. For years, John Elway seemed to have the team in the Super Bowl every few years. For all his faults, Jay Cutler held his own for a while. And Peyton Manning helped return the franchise to glory with two Super Bowl runs before retiring.

All of a sudden, however, quarterback is a position of serious concern for the NFL team. That’s pretty strange considering John Elway is the one in charge of grooming the next, well, John Elway. But then again, maybe he’s really good at being a quarterback but not identifying other good quarterbacks. He is, after all, the guy who thought Brock Osweiler would be the heir apparent and passed on other potential draft picks including Russell Wilson, Dak Prescott, and Mike Glennon. He also tried to go with Trevor Siemian and considered Mark Sanchez.

Now it looks like we can officially add Paxton Lynch to the pile. Lynch’s first two seasons with the Broncos have been rough and he’s since been replaced by Case Keenum as the starter heading into the 2018 season. Lynch is still getting looks, but his performance was so abysmal in the team’s most recent preseason game (6-of-11 for 24 yards and an interception) that he’s not only cemented the fact that he won’t start this year, but he’s officially been pushed below Chad Kelly on the depth chart.

For those keeping score, that’s the 2016 No. 26 overall pick sitting in the third slot on the depth chart behind the team’s seventh-round pick in 2017. And it’s Chad Freakin’ Kelly of all people.

Lynch signed a four-year, $9,476,296 contract with the Broncos that runs through next season so the team is either going to have a very expensive third-stringer this season or they might just want to consider cutting their losses as well as him. This season, Lynch’s cap hit is around $2,584,444, which means cutting him would result in a “dead money” hit of $4,457,407. That’s a lot of dead money to carry around. However, one Broncos fan was looking to help lighten the load.

Denver fan Nick Andrew started a GoFundMe to raise money that would help the Broncos recoup $600,000 of that money. The spoof campaign (at least we hope it was a spoof campaign) raised around $80 before it disappeared off the site. Perhaps the Broncos asked him kindly to remove it or perhaps it became abundantly clear that he wouldn’t be able to raise the money needed to help this poor $2.5 billion franchise get the money it needed.

The odds don’t look all that great for Case Keenum to magically transform things in Denver back to the glory days, so one has to wonder whether or not the Broncos need some better quarterback analysis up top. Or at the very least, maybe they just need to suck it up and buy another aging veteran to run the show for a few years. That seemed to be the only one that worked out for them recently.

[NFL.com]

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Editorial Strategy Director for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.

1 thought on “How are the Denver Broncos, of all teams, so bad with picking quarterbacks?

  1. No wonder they don’t want to cut him. However he’s been souring the milk for the first day he arrived.

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